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NEW ORLEANS — It’s a topic Alfred Kelly Jr. will not be able to escape for the next year, so he politely entertains the endless conversations about the weather.

Once the confetti falls and the Lombardi Trophy is lifted in celebration Sunday by the Baltimore Ravens or San Francisco 49ers, the countdown to Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium will begin. The coming months likely will be a blur for the 54-year-old Harrison resident, who is in charge of implementing a game plan to showcase the metropolitan region as president and CEO of the New York/New Jersey Super Bowl Host Committee.

And there’s a chance Mother Nature will crash the party.

“Even though lots of big events have taken place in this region, the Super Bowl is a really big deal,” Kelly said Thursday before heading out to see the inner workings of the events in New Orleans, the site for this year’s game. “They will have played this championship game for the last five decades without ever coming to the biggest stage in the world, so it’s about time.”

The past four Super Bowls have generated in excess of 150 million television viewers, and the event plays on the flat screen like a weeklong advertisement, touting business and tourism in the host city or region. According to an estimate by the N.Y./N.J. host committee, the NFL’s biggest game will have a $550 million impact on the regional economy.

So this is an important gig for Kelly, who was president of American Express until he retired in 2009. He was head of information systems at the White House from 1985 to 1987, and prior to that worked for PepsiCo. Kelly doesn’t have much of a sports background, though he did earn all-county status in track at Iona Prep.

He is an Iona College graduate as well.

“I play golf and tennis and work out, all with great mediocrity,” said Kelly, who grew up in the Crestwood section of Yonkers.

A background in sports wasn’t high on the list of requirements the ownership groups of the Giants and Jets listed for the position when they won the right to host Super Bowl XLVIII. The committee works off a $60 million budget and has to deal with a wide array of logistical issues.

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“This is a business,” Kelly said.

Though the NFL picks the venues needed to host a weeklong slate of pregame events and has the final say in most decisions, it requires an independent, not-for-profit host company to organize the masses involved with the effort.

“We’re responsible for raising the money to put the game on,” Kelly said. “We’re responsible for marketing events leading up to the Super Bowl. We’re responsible for building community involvement and spirit. We’re going to need 15,000 volunteers, the most I know of for any event in the region.”

So far, Kelly said, 12,000 people from the metropolitan region have signed up to help sell the virtues of New York and New Jersey.

Essentially, the host committee’s job is to ensure that any business that could benefit from the Super Bowl landing at MetLife Stadium is fully prepared to win over new customers. Kelly calls it maximizing economic value.

And nobody wants it to snow on that parade.

“We made this decision consciously,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said last week when the league began to unveil venue plans in Manhattan. “Football is made to be played in the elements. … We’re going to celebrate the game here, we’re going to celebrate the weather, and we’re going to make it a great experience.”

And that responsibility falls largely on the shoulders of Kelly, who has 28 staff members going at warp speed here this week, taking notes on the complete operation.

“For me, and for the host committee, our Super Bowl is Monday to Saturday,” he said. “That’s what we’re spending most of our time on, making sure that our guests are warmly welcomed, that our businesses are open and ready for capacity crowds, that people are happy so they’re out spending money in our hotels, in our restaurants, in our entertainment venues, in our cultural venues, etc.”

Security is handled by the league in conjunction with federal, state and local officials.

“We did start the planning earlier than usual,” said Jeff Miller, NFL vice president of security. “Normally, we start planning about a year in advance of the Super Bowl. For New York and New Jersey, we started a year and four months in advance, because there are some other things we’ll need to address, but it’s going very well.”

All of the Super Bowl-related events leading up to the game are going to be held in Manhattan or New Jersey, but Kelly said he thinks there will be some economic spillover as private jets come and go from Westchester County Airport. There also might be an uptick in business for local hotels.

“We’re going to try to make the geography a nonissue for people so they don’t have to worry about driving, they don’t have to worry about snow, they don’t have to worry about drinking,” Kelly said. “We’re going to help get them places. We live in an area of the country where we know how to move snow out of the way. … We will do, with our government partners, everything we can to make sure weather is not an issue. That being said, Mother Nature has a mind of her own.”